rd him roar with laughter at his
cleverness.'

She stopped suddenly, and a look of frightful agony crossed her face.

'And at this very minute, for all I know, it may be by his influence that
I say this to you, so that he may cause you still greater suffering by
allowing me to tell you that he never cared for me. You know now that my
life is hell, and his vengeance is complete.'

'Vengeance for what?'

'Don't you remember that you hit him once, and kicked him unmercifully? I
know him well now. He could have killed you, but he hated you too much.
It pleased him a thousand times more to devise this torture for you and
me.'

Margaret's agitation was terrible to behold. This was the first time that
she had ever spoken to a soul of all these things, and now the long
restraint had burst as burst the waters of a dam. Arthur sought to calm
her.

'You're ill and overwrought. You must try to compose yourself. After all,
Haddo is a human being like the rest of us.'

'Yes, you always laughed at his claims. You wouldn't listen to the things
he said. But I know. Oh, I can't explain it; I daresay common sense and
probability are all against it, but I've seen things with my own eyes
that pass all comprehension. I tell you, he has powers of the most awful
kind. That first day when I was alone with him, he seemed to take me to
some kind of sabbath. I don't know what it was, but I saw horrors, vile
horrors, that rankled for ever after like poison in my mind; and when we
went up to his house in Staffordshire, I recognized the scene; I
recognized the arid rocks, and the trees, and the lie of the land. I knew
I'd been there before on that fatal afternoon. Oh, you must believe me!
Sometimes I think I shall go mad with the terror of it all.'

Arthur did not speak. Her words caused a ghastly suspicion to flash
through his mind, and he could hardly contain himself. He thought that
some dreadful shock had turned her brain. She buried her face in her
hands.

'Look here,' he said, 'you must come away at once. You can't continue to
live with him. You must never go back to Skene.'

'I can't leave him. We're bound together inseparably.'

'But it's monstrous. There can be nothing to keep you to him. Come back
to Susie. She'll be very kind to you; she'll help you to forget all
you've endured.'

'It's no use. You can do nothing for me.'

'Why not?'

'Because, notwithstanding, I love him with all my soul.'

'Margaret!'

'I hate him.